A few minutes at the end of the program was set aside for questions.“What about your children?” someone asked.“Are they or have they been treated differently because their mother has been in prison?”The three women seated at the table in the front of the room had all served their time. Two of them several years. One of them twenty-five years. The children of the two younger women had been born in prison and were too young to know about prison or about what their mom had done or to face the teasing and taunting and discrimination that older children might have faced. The children of the older woman had been raised by grandparents and grew up only periodically seeing their Mom. Fortunately, for them, a strong support system was in place and they competed high school and then college and are finding their own way in the world.

But, it is an important question isn’t it?Do we punish or allow children to be punished for the wrong doing of the parents?Many children, maybe most in the situation asked about, suffer the consequences of the destructive decisions and behavior of their parents. Poverty. Lack of support. Abuse. But do we, you and me, punish the children or think the children deserve to be punished?

As I listened to those mothers speak about the impact of their decisions on their children, I found myself thinking of the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) students who now, because of current climate and policy, face an uncertain future. Brought to this country when they were children by parents who were fleeing oppression or violence or poverty and who are now in high school or college in the only country many of them have ever known, should they be forced to leave? Forced to “return” to a county they have never known? Will we punish them for the decisions their parents made?

At a recent rally in support of the immigrant community, a lone woman stood off to the side holding a sign which read, “The law is the law.” I wish I had gone over to speak with her and to ask her what she thought should happen to the children a couple of whom had spoken at the rally. Yes, the law is the law, but we are the ones who make the laws and can remake the laws when they no longer work or apply to the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

There has been a lot of talk lately about income inequality and stagnant wages for workers and a shrinking middle class and more people living in poverty than we have experienced in some time. Concerns which I think are important to take seriously. And wrapped up in the discussion of wages and minimum wage is the discussion of why people are poor.
Are they lazy?
Are they not willing to take responsibility for their own lives?
Are they single parents?
Do they come from single parent households?
Have they become dependent on welfare or on handouts from others?

The public discussion around these issues lacks depth and is doled out in sound bites and avoids the complicated and challenging interplay between personal responsibility and community/social support. In a conversation this past week about the headlines in the news, the concern about single parent households was brought up. I asked the person with whom I was speaking what had kept her marriage together.
Her answer…
The example of their parents.
The hard work they decided to do.
The support of community, church, friends.
I know it doesn’t always happen that way.
Even with the best intentions and the hard work and community and family support sometimes relationships fall apart, but her answered mirrored my thoughts about my own marriage.

Research over the last 30-40 years has documented the rise of individualism in our culture and the decline of those institutions and informal structures which held communities together. There is much to lament about that and I think we are paying the price, but unlike some the answer is not to go back. While there was good in those structures, there was also bad. Because of social norms woman suffered in silence and isolation in abusive relationships which needed to be named for what they were. Those of us who care deeply about community and the communities in which we live need to reframe the debate in more helpful, holistic terms and call out those on either end of the political or social spectrum who frame an important and complicated issue in simplistic terms.

I am troubled by the headlines in the news.The House of Representatives removed the SNAP program from the farm bill they passed this weeks saying they would deal with the food stamp program at a later date. At the same there seems to be more people hungry, more families below the poverty line, more people lining up each week at the local food pantry hoping for a bag of groceries than there seemed to be just a few years ago.

A part of what bothers me is the cynicism that seems to surround these issues. Do we really believe people are hungry because they are lazy. Or, poor because they don’t want to work. Do we really believe that all they are looking for is a handout? Or, a way to take advantage of the rest of us?I am sure there are some people like that.Some people who receive food stamps.Some people who refuse a job because they don’t want to work.Some people who will do what they can to take advantage of the system.But I can’t believe that is most of the people who are hungry or poor.And, there are certainly some bankers and lawyers and politicians and clergy…Some people in every profession who are lazy and who take advantage of the system.

My experience is that most people want to provide for their families.And, most people want to make a difference.And, most people want to work in a job that has a level of dignity and a decent wage.And, most people do not think it is right for children to go to school or to go to bed hungry. And, most people, when they come face to face with hunger or poverty discover that those who are hungry or poor are human beings not all that different than themselves. If that is the case, why do we have such a hard time talking about these issues civilly and treating those who find themselves in need as human beings deserving of respect and a level of understanding?

Is it just the way the news is reported?Or, just the current partisanship in the political process?I don’t know.What I do know is the America represented by the headlines in the news and the current political gamesmanship is not the America I know. The America I know cares about about its neighbors and does what it can to help. The America I know cares about children and, for the most part, works hard at whatever job it has. There are problems, yes. But, if we start from the vantage point of the America which I know and not the America of the headlines in the news, there has to be a way we can figure this out together.

We first spoke in the late fall or early winter of 1979.She was (and is!) a Roman Catholic sister who had just moved to the small community of Hurley, Virginia located in the heart of Appalachia. At that time I was on the staff of church in suburban Chicago doing youth ministry. We were looking for a new location for one of our summer work trips that the congregation where I was working did each summer. She had heard about us from another organization. Without ever meeting only talking on the phone, we decided that we would take a chance on each other. So, in the summer of 1980 I, along with 3 other adults and a dozen high school youth wound our way through the Appalachian mountains to Hurley and spent the next two weeks repairing homes. Tomorrow I leave to do it all again. This time leaving from New York with six other adults and 20 high school youth. We will spend the next week working on three homes doing what we can to make them safer and stronger for the families who live there.

I used to think what was most important was the work we did.Now I am not so sure.Yes, roofs that do not leak;And, floors without holes;And, safe front porches;And, windows that are secure;Are all vitally important.But, what is just as important is the hope that is renewed.The reminder that someone cares;That in the midst of the work, someone will stop for a moment and listen to the stories that need to be told;That we learn each other’s names:And that at the end of the week we leave with a hug good-bye and with tears in our eyes.

One of the quotes that I will ask the group to this about this week is this:“Poverty is slow death.”That is true in a physical sense.Being poor is crushingly hard physically.But, it is also true emotionally and spiritually as hope fades and despair closes in. Next week I hope that while we rebuild portions of three homes, we will do an even better job of building hope. A hope that will linger long after we have returned home.

This Sunday we will be hosting a showing ofThe Line, a documentary about the growing number of people in the United States who live below the poverty line. I have to admit I previewed the video with tears in my eyes. I know…it is only the story of four households, but their story is multiplied many times over affecting far more of our neighbors that I dare to imagine.

Maybe some of the power of the documentary is that it puts names and faces on those who, otherwise, are often invisible to us. I remember years ago taking a group of high school students from upstate New York into New York City on a Midnight Run to distribute food and clothing and blankets along with a few minutes of humanizing conversation to the men and women who lived on the streets of the city. Before we went the students told me there were no homeless people in the community in which they lived. The next time I saw them they shared with me they had been wrong. Because of their experience on the Midnight Run, their eyes had been opened and they began to see what was just below the surface in their own backyard. Maybe the same thing needs to happen to many of us when it comes to those who live below the poverty line in our country. It is harder to turn away or to categorize them when we have looked them in the eye.

When I get to moments like this…When I actually take time enough to pay attention…And to open my eyes…And to be honest with myself…I remember a quote from Archbiship Oscar Romero, the Salvadoran Archbishop who was assassinated because of his advocacy on behalf of the poor in his country. He never called anyone poor.Instead he referred to them as “those made poor.”I am afraid he was more correct than we often dare to admit.